Why do bullies have so many friends?

Post Reply New Topic

It seems to me sometimes that the more idiotic you are, the more friends you get. Why did many of the people who bullied me a lot have so many friends and why were they so popular? Anyone else ask themselves this?

They aren't actual 'friends'. Those are, more or less, just people they know. Bullies are the social predators, they can only find someone to pick on by knowing them.

There's something to be said for the # of friends vs. intelligence, though.

They're friended with all the other bullies, it's one side of society that seems to fit somewhere in the NPD/BPD/ASPD spectrum, while the bullied don't.

Most of them aren't real friends. They only join the bullying to not become the victims. So I think it's fear but also to feel better by putting others down. It's paradox but human nature that we rather walk with the crowd even if that means to do bad things than to stand alone and fight for the good things.

I noticed this at school. The bullies were always the most popular, and always had a big group of friends practically kissing their arse, and including them all the time and thinking they're the most wonderful people in the whole world.

It still goes on in adulthood, believe it or not. At my last volunteer job, one of the women there was very two-faced, bitchy, smarmy, sarcastic, and very, very cliquey. But she was the most popular person there. I didn't like her much, and neither did one or two of the others, but the rest loved her and they were always on her side, no matter what she did wrong. That made me not like her even more.

But the problem with this woman was she had favourites, and she wasn't afraid to express it either. If you was one of her favourites, you automatically really liked her and could never see the bad side of her. If you wasn't one of her favourites, you knew it by sensing a vibe, and you automatically didn't like her and could never see the good side of her, and could never convince her favourites that she had a bad side to her. So basically, she was just one of those people who you either loved or hated.

Perhaps that's how bullies get so popular too. (Obviously she wasn't a bully, but she had a bloody good way of getting her own way with people).

Fear.

They fit in, typically the person being bullied does not.

Because bullies are manipulative people. You don't have to be smart to have a sneaky tongue.

Seems to me that this most likely has to do with introversion vs. extroversion. It is my experience that most extrovert people have a lot of friends, and that bullies tend to be extrovert (or at least seem that way).

I wonder sometimes if the people who were bullying me in school, were actual bullies, or if I was taking playground teasing the wrong way.

Admittedly some people did bully and more without a doubt but some others in retrospect I'm not sure about.

Very rarely was there anyone else present but the bully, so most of the time this behaviour was unnoticed by the other kids.

Jason..

Yes I have wondered that too but I have also wondered kids who were not nice people, how come they had friends and were likable and I was not?

But I wonder how if they were only mean to me and everyone just thought I deserved it. I mean I did have poor social skills and didn't know how to act and had poor impulse control so the way I acted made it look like I was bad and most people don't respect bad people so they treat you as such. That can be hard for someone who has an ASD or a social disorder so that is where "blaming the victim" comes in. Plus I think I may have taken honesty as them being mean to me and kids are honest and they don't say things to be mean. They are just honest and tell it like the way it is and don't make excuses or sugar coat. Some of them do because they were taught to do it and would get in trouble if they hurt Johnny's feelings so they lie to avoid it. I may have also taken their teasing as them being mean to me.

Yes, I've noticed too Herd mentality? Like-attracts-like? The path of least resistance? Like the others have already alluded to, they're probably not "friends," by strict definition. Instead, accomplices. Or cohorts. (I'm glad I'm not their friends)! I'd rather hang-out with a bunch of Aspies who are honest and I know I can trust. Yes, we may be eccentric, but we're kind and loyal

I think those so called friends that they have are actually scared or have some kind of identity problem because mostly one bully is the leader. We just call them followers here :o

As said above: Fear, they don't want to be bullied themselves. The mob mentality, etc. also..
I have had friends come from the ranks of bulllies, as long as THAT person is not around.
Well, I cannot say this from the female side of the aisle, but it is true for the male.. It is that they follow the strongest leader at THAT time..

Sincerely,
Matthew

It almost seems like the pressure from others is starting to make you guys think "blame the victim" is okay, too. Taking teasing the wrong way? The only times I've seen teasing be an okay thing is if a friend is doing it in a friendly manner. If the kids teasing you weren't friends, then of course it comes off as mean. That's especially the case if teasing you was a normal thing- it's more "go along with the crowd." As others here said, it's a matter of keeping themselves from being picked on.

I also had an awful time in school. Third and fourth grades were bad, but in fifth grade it was the worst. There wasn't a single kid in the class that left me alone. That's the year I learned how making fun of others helps one's popularity. There was one boy that got teased on almost as much as I did. I realized that if I picked on him, I got a little more acceptance from the others. However, I felt awful doing it and, honestly, he was better at picking on me than I was at picking on him... so he still managed to rise above me on that "popularity totem pole", so to speak. I accepted my fate as the class loser, but I had a valuable lesson learned.

Human nature causes people to divide others into two groups: "us" and "them". People have a strong desire to get along with "us", and they usually use their shared opposition to "them" in order to achieve it. It's the same technique governments use to rally their people against another country that they want to go to war with. A lot of hardcore religious and political groups also do it. It's incredibly easy to manipulate people with it because it's such a strong impulse. (Somehow, I can't find a name for the phenomenon. However, Groupthink is a very similar idea. It's also worthwhile to check the other related ideas under "See also" on the bottom of that page.)

So, essentially, all of us who got picked on were pretty much tools to help the rest of the crowd feel a bond towards each other. They got closer together by driving us away from them. Isn't human nature lovely?

Really if someone is doing something wrong, how is it blaming the victim when you try and get them to change it? Such as lets say Little Billy likes grabbing other kids and he does it wrong. How is teaching him not to do that blaming the victim? I am sensing that it's a crime to teach us proper behavior to make our lives easier. Same as if we try and change ourselves or if we suggest we should look at what we are doing wrong.


EDIT: Also someone doing playful teasing and we take it the wrong way. That is what autism does to us, we get upset with teasing and sarcasm so we tend to misunderstand it. We may mistake it as meanness because we take it so seriously we don't know they are just playing. I remember mom telling me that when I was a kid, kids would tell me to do something and I would say no and they would tell me I was so mean. that would upset me and then they would be nice to me again and it would confuse me. But the truth was that was how they treated each other, they did it to each other also and I just took it literal. Now today when I see people treating others how they have treated me, I take their behavior less seriously. Even as a child when kids do things to me, mom would tell me they are just playing and they do it to other kids, I wouldn't believe her. This was before she knew I had AS. She probably thought I was just being sensitive and taking it so personally. I technically was but she didn't know why I was being that way. She had to figure out my mind worked different so I saw things differently.

Last edited by League_Girl on 18 Mar 2012, 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.